


thots and prayers

by LieutenantSaavik



Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-05
Updated: 2019-09-05
Packaged: 2020-10-10 16:03:41
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,969
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20530736
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LieutenantSaavik/pseuds/LieutenantSaavik
Summary: this is not a fic; it's a collection of good omens tv meta/analysis i've written over the past few months, if anyone's interested.





	thots and prayers

my analysis of everything having to do with the holy water really centers around this:

1\. crowley says he won’t use it to off himself and aziraphale doesn’t believe him  
2\. aziraphale probably knows crowley better than anyone else  
3\. in the burning bentley, crowley says “if you’re gonna go, then go with style”  
4\. the set-up to get the lethal holy water, the “caper,” is precisely that  
5\. “i’ll give you a lift” could mean “i’ll give you one last gift before i leave you”  
6\. “perhaps one day we could go for a picnic” could mean “no, i refuse it, because later we are going to spend time together and _you will still be there._”

***

when i watched good omens, i didn’t expect to love tv crowley, and it fuckin blindsided me. all at once, i thought, _oh gosh_, _damn_, and_ fuck_, roughly in that order, and here’s why.

where tv crowley and book crowley most significantly diverge is the bookshop fire. in the book, “Crowley cursed Aziraphale, and the ineffable plan, and Above, and Below.” in the tv show, instead of cursing him, he calls out for him desperately before falling to the floor with a quiet “you’ve _gone_.”for book crowley, az is “Aziraphale. The Enemy, of course. But an enemy for six thousand years now, which made him a sort of friend.” for tv crowley, aziraphale is his “best friend.” naturally, in the bookshop fire, tv crowley is in fucking agony. this is not how book crowley reacts.

see, one of book crowley’s most basic traits is his optimism. “Because, underneath it all,” the book says, “Crowley was an optimist. If there was one rock-hard certainty that had sustained him through the bad times—he thought briefly of the fourteenth century—then it was utter surety that he would come out on top; that the universe would look after him.”

it’s a really beautiful passage. _and i can’t relate to it at all. _

after the fire, book crowley thinks he might “get completely and utterly pissed out of his mind while he waited for the world to end.” where book crowley only considers it, tv crowley actually does it. he _does_ go to wait out the end of the world while drunk, and_ does _give up, and he_ does_ break down, and he is not an optimist; he is a _mess_. that struck me. i’ve never seen a heroic character so blatantly need help before. but crowley gets help; he finds a friend and confesses how much aziraphale means to him; he gets back in the car and forges onward through the fire, even though he’s clearly Not Okay.

and there, on the flaming m25, book crowley and tv crowley diverge again. tv crowley is not an optimist; he’s not holding the bentley together with the hope that it’ll all work out. _but he does it anyway_. tv crowley doesn’t have optimism, but he has something that is, to me, even more important. in the show, “Crowley has something no other demons have, especially not Hastur: an imagination.”

_an imagination_. strangely enough, in the book, crowley admits to lacking it: “They’ve got what we lack. They’ve got _imagination,_” book crowley says. but tv crowley _has_ that imagination, and that is what saves him–and that, to me, makes so much sense.

tv crowley is traumatised. when he fell, some part of him _broke_, and while he claims he “sauntered vaguely downwards,” he really took a “million-light-year freestyle dive into a pool of boiling sulphur,” and it hurt. tv crowley is hurt. and so am i. 

i also give up. i also break down. i don’t, and can’t, ever believe that the universe is looking out for me–or for anyone. i am not an optimist. but you know what? i have imagination. i have friends. and if it came down to me to help save the world, that is _exactly_ what i would rely on.

***

the whole “somebody killed my best friend” “i lost my best friend” thing is like. well. it’s like. idk. sure it could mean, for some people, that crowley doesn’t care for aziraphale in a romantic way. and like, that’s valid i guess? but i remember asking my mom if she was in love with my dad, and she always gave the same answer: “he’s my best friend.” that’s how she spoke about her marriage. and crowley canonically listens to “you’re my best friend” when he thinks about aziraphale, and that’s a song about marriage, too. and its lyrics describe their relationship! crowley, alone, screams for aziraphale while the lyrics “i know i’ll never be lonely; you’re my only one" surround him; perfect irony.

i also sort of feel like, in hell, having a best friend would be considered worse than having a lover. in heaven, it might be the reverse. uriel says “your _boyfriend_in the dark glasses” with the same distaste as hastur says “your _best friend_aziraphale,” y’know? and wouldn’t having a “best friend” be a shameful thing in hell, where no-one trusts anyone despite knowing them for centuries? crowley saying aziraphale is his “best friend” is an admission that he’s not trying to tempt him; no, he just likes him. he _loves_ him. and “best friend” is the most unselfish way he can think of to say that. 

***

The scene where the archangel michael calls ligur on the phone is one of my favourite additions the tv show made (along with “i believe in peace, bitch” and most of episode 3). she contacts hell using ‘backchannels,’ _backchannels gabriel doesn’t know about_, meaning she could be just as disobedient as aziraphale--she just hides it better. she _advises_ ligur, a duke of hell. and unlike aziraphale, she’s absolutely shameless about it. “[crowley] might be playing his own game; word to the wise,” she tells ligur. she’s looking out for him, for reasons we’ll never know. maybe she realises heaven can’t exist without hell, so they have to help each other out. regardless, it’s very interesting, and complicates her character a fair bit.

when aziraphale talks to the archangels, they all stare him down except michael; she has a faint smile and appears to be listening. clearly, she _was _listening. she’s smart; she’s the one who actually follows up on aziraphale’s bumbling reports; she’s the one who discovers his relationship with crowley. the other angels dismissed aziraphale altogether. she didn’t. she also wasn’t involved in aziraphale’s execution.

she’s the only angel to appear not in a suit; she wears a loose white shirt and pants when she’s in hell. she also wears a pinky ring, which i think is cute, and it shows that she, too, has cultivated some measure of individuality in an austere place.

she’s a bastard too. “of course you can trust me,” she says, with a sickly-sweet smile, “i’m an angel!”

love her.

***

crying about “you can stay at my place, if you like” not because of the “stay at my place” but because of the “if you like,” because probably nowhere in aziraphale’s six thousand years of existence has anyone said “you can do this _if you want_,” “you can have this _if you want_.” if you want, if you like—that is _choice_ and that choice is a kindness, and that is growth on crowley’s end, too. “i’ll give you a lift, anywhere you want to go” had no “if you like.” “we can run away together” had no “if you like.” but this offer, born out of the same sort of tenderness, does. and i _hope_ aziraphale took him up on it.

***

the bodyswap? how it looks like aziraphale is the one being kidnapped by the angels, struggling frantically and trying to fucking scream to warn crowley that the same thing’s gonna happen to him? and then you realise that’s _crowley _trying to warn _aziraphale_, trying to save him just one more time?

***

today is a good day to appreciate how madame tracy, just by refusing to let aziraphale kill adam, single-handedly did more to save the world than like, literally anyone else there

***

we know–-we _think_–-crowley only wanted the holy water so he could vaporise other demons in case hell came after him. but aziraphale thought crowley wanted the holy water to kill himself.

what if aziraphale was right? crowley was willing to put himself in danger to get the holy water, after all; what if he did actually want to die? what if he was going to kill himself with it until aziraphale gave it to him and he realised he had somebody to love? somebody who loves him? a best friend, someone who literally _makes him live_? crowley has, for years, saved aziraphale from inconvenient discorporation. what if aziraphale saved crowley from death? 

i’m going further with this interpretation. “i’ll give you a lift, anywhere you want to go.” if aziraphale had said yes, would crowley would have driven him somewhere, dropped him off, said goodbye, and _meant it_?

but it wasn’t, because aziraphale said no, said “you go too fast for me,” and crowley finally looked at him, looked at the holy water, looked at himself, and realised he needed to slow down? realised he needed to live so that someday they _could_ go on that picnic, someday they _could_ dine at the ritz?

“don’t go unscrewing the cap.” aziraphale really thought he was going to.

***

do you ever think about aziraphale’s books, why he chose to surround himself with, of all that earth had to offer, _books_? books are collections of knowledge and imagination; they are literally humanity distilled into stories. there is nothing, in my opinion, more profoundly, fundamentally human than a book. and aziraphale’s home is _filled with them_, filled with human stories that he doesn’t want anyone to <strike>buy</strike> take from him. he lives his entire life surrounded by books; he is an angel and can create the most lovely, safe space imaginable, and he chooses to stuff it floor-to-ceiling with books. i think it’s really lovely.

***

aziraphale is anathema, given a centuries-old list of rules to follow, realising by the end that it’s our free will that defines us more than anything else, and questioning (and ultimately discarding) those rules. crowley is newt, profoundly uncool but genuinely loyal, helping his partner along while driving a car so dear to him it’s practically an extension of his personality.

aziraphale is shadwell, keeping the person he loves at bay by insulting them—compare his “you’re a demon; it’s what you do” to shadwell’s “harlot” and “jezebel” rhetoric. crowley is madame tracy, who does things considered “wrong” by society’s standards but is still heroic and even kind, returning again and again to the person who insults them because they know that person is good.

aziraphale is mrs. young, a pale-haired, kindhearted nurturer. crowley is mr. young, less affectionate but no less loving, who pretends not to be “a softie” though he absolutely is.

and there’s more!

the british minister and his boyfriend who are there for one scene resemble aziraphale and crowley in broad strokes; they’re an ordinary-looking plump man (the minister) and a slender, androgynous one (the boyfriend, who i think has crowley’s same haircut). even famine and his human girlfriend have a loose a&c parallel; when they go out for dinner, one watches the other eat.

all these stories and relationships that seem so distinct are actually in conversation with one another, interconnected in subtle but reachable ways. no character is actually all that different from any other character in the show.

***

aziraphale’s blind and instinctive loyalty to heaven IS comphet and i cannot believe i didn’t see it before

***

what is a third-culture kid? someone "raised in a culture other than their parents’ for a significant part of their development years.”

let’s take crowley’s “human” side. he “wears sunglasses even when he doesn’t need to.” he wears sunglasses in front of the nuns who know he’s a demon. he wears sunglasses in front of aziraphale. in one scene, he wears sunglasses when he’s _in hell_. why is that significant? to me, it’s because when he wears sunglasses, he passes perfectly as a human. my point: he very intentionally plays up his human identity when he’s around demons.

let’s take the flipside. he dresses in black and red, the colours of hell and the colours of his snake form, and he keeps his hair an unnatural ginger. his flat, behind the plants, looks (in basic structure) like hell does. my point: he plays up his demon identity when he’s around humans. 

now let’s take aziraphale’s “human” side. he eats like a human and he talks like a human. when he’s in heaven, he doesn’t put on the gold dusty sparkles uriel and michael wear, and his eyes are human-normal, not purple. he doesn’t wear perfectly tailored clothing. unlike all the other angels, there is no difference between how he presents himself on earth and in heaven. my point: he very intentionally plays up his human identity when he’s around angels.

let’s take the flipside. his hair is white, perpetually halo-ing his face, he doesn’t swear because that’s his idea of goodness, and he dresses in light and loose clothing, always, just like he did in eden. my point: he plays up his angel identity when he’s around humans. 

i’m the child of an american diplomat, a third-culture-kid, so i’ve experienced this myself. when i lived in india, i was foreign and unique; i played up the american aspects of my upbringing because i was in a non-american atmosphere. so when nobody else around me used fahrenheit or american spellings, i did, because it was a way to hold on to my identity. but now that i’m back in america, where everybody uses fahrenheit and american spellings, i switched over to celsius and british spellings like they use in india, so i’m playing up the opposite. this is the way split identities work; it’s a very difficult thing to perpetually navigate, and aziraphale and crowley do it all the time. they have “gone native,” are too supernatural to be humans, but they are far too human to be supernatural. essentially, they are third-culture-kids, which is why it’s so interesting that they raise warlock, a third-culture-kid himself.

***

two things i guess

1\. it’s possible to read aziraphale and crowley’s relationship as a friendship if you ignore, like, the nightingale, somebody to love, “do something or i’ll never talk to you again,” “little demonic miracle of my own,” crowley winking, crowley calling aziraphale “angel” as a nickname/term of endearment, “your boyfriend in the dark glasses,” aziraphale’s loving gazes, etc.

2\. however if you choose to read aziraphale and crowley as platonic you must also read tracy and shadwell as platonic, which i will now GLEEFULLY do

***

im gonna say it. im gonna fuckin say it.

from what we’ve seen, tv aziraphale, when he’s around crowley, is always always walking/standing/sitting with his hands in that fuckingn do-it-to-em pose. like, constantly. and what’s so significant about it that, kora? you ask. it’s just a mannerism, right? yeah, it is. but it’s also an excellent fucking character choice.

i’ve studied body language, and fun fact: when you involuntarily put your hands in front of you, in any way, it’s because you feel unsafe. it may not seem like it, but you’re shutting yourself off from whoever is around you. what aziraphale is doing is a self-contained, almost standoffish pose, and it’s _defensive_. it’s self-protective. az is doing something i do all the time: lace my fingers together and force a distance. essentially, from what we’ve seen, aziraphale is not comfortable being close to crowley; that’s what the body language says.

but at the end of the show, at the ritz, he, without hesitation, _leans in_.

***

i was initially disappointed [that the trials involved] a bodyswap but then i realised that i _loved_ it. they get to stay themselves! they don’t need to change any basic aspect of their identity to live on earth. they can stay an angel and a demon, stay in love, stay together, y’know? and i always got the sense that, if aziraphale had fallen, he’d have turned out like crowley, and if crowley hadn’t fallen, he’d have turned out like aziraphale. as in, removed from their restrictive contexts, they could BE each other. and then they WERE! and it shows how well they know each other and how much they’re willing to risk for each other and also how ‘good’ and ‘evil’ are just, as the book says, ‘names for sides’ and nothing more.

***

the Scene in episode six where aziraphale and crowley are drinking in the dark after almostgeddon? the two of them sitting _on opposite sides_ of the bench? kept apart by the physical barrier of the box containing the four horsemen’s gear? when an ordinary human takes the box away from between them, literally AND metaphorically removing everything keeping them apart? them getting on the bus together and sitting _right next to each other_ after that? “you can stay at my place if you like”? “you don’t have a side anymore; neither of us do”? POETIC CINEMA

***

when tv crowley clearly loves the human world and feels incredible distress at the threat of its ending but clearly struggles profoundly with the very idea of joy, when he is heavily implied by aziraphale to be severely depressed if not near suicidal, when he pleads for humans not to be destroyed as he questions the entity who allowed him to be irrevocably traumatised, when he’s willing to die after he thinks aziraphale died because he’s ripped from the precious shreds of hope he’d probably spent years building up and it’s just too much all of a sudden, when he sits there and feels alone and broken just like so many people do, _when, in spite of everything, he is still made of enough determination and imagination to hold together a fucking flaming car? _POETIC CINEMA

***

[everything after this note was written about the book, not the show, but applies to both]

***

listen. good omens is composed of three (three) adult duos. shadwell and tracy? romance. newt and anathema? romance. aziraphale and crowley? _romance_. siri send post

***

so i have a fever and a cough and i’ve taken a bit more medicine than is strictly healthy so this will be somewhat disorganised and ungenius but the fact that aziraphale follows up “i can’t not do what i’m told” with “i’m an angel,” which is his justification for obeying heaven, is really revealing. i think, in some ways, aziraphale’s identity as an angel is more important to him than actually doing good–or at least it seems to be his primary motivator for doing good. aziraphale tries his damnedest (ha) to twist almost every action he takes into a heaven-acceptable action. and, crucially, crowley knows he does this. crowley knows aziraphale won’t stop the apocalypse against heaven’s will, so he tries to convince aziraphale that stopping the apocalypse could _be_ heaven’s will. he paints the apocalypse as a strictly demonic idea, because aziraphale, by his own admission, “can’t interfere with divine plans.” crowley replies with, “what about diabolical ones?” and “you’re supposed to thwart the wiles of the evil one at every turn, aren’t you?“ to which aziraphale gives a thoughtful “yes.”

aziraphale sort of perpetually lies to himself, saying heaven won’t mind if he does something, because he can only justify an action he takes if heaven can justify it, too. i don’t want to say he’s narrow minded, but he is; he won’t collaborate with crowley unless it’s under the guise of “thwarting” him, at least at the start of the book. in the beginning (ha) aziraphale is fundamentally loyal to heaven because he sees that as being fundamentally good. i think it goes like this: being an angel is important to aziraphale’s identity, and to be an angel you have to be good, and to be good you have to obey heaven; therefore, aziraphale has to obey heaven, and that outweighs everything else for him. early on, aziraphale is fundamentally loyal to heaven, but by the end, he is reaching out, not to heaven but to _crowley_, and taking his hand–saying flat-out that he’s doing it just because he likes crowley–which shows a radical change in his character: he’s found his own morals. and you know what that is? growth.

***

maybe aziraphale relates to us gays so much because he also loves someone he's told he shouldn't love

***

the fact that newt/anathema is somewhat poorly-developed and unconvincing is not intentional, i’m sure, but i’m almost glad it is, because that gives us an interesting dichotomy:

newt and anathema come together because they’re told they should, and they don’t love each other very well.

aziraphale and crowley come together even though they’re told they shouldn’t, and they love each other _incredibly_ well.

***

no but seriously, aziraphale and crowley are _comforting_ characters. they have loved each other (i use love in the most neutral sense here) for so long and they have loved each other so deeply, and they seem to tell me that not everyone you know is going to leave you. there will be people–maybe you haven’t met them yet, but you will–who will want to be at your side forever. aziraphale and crowley seem to remind me that love is a very old thing, a very real thing, and–because i know i lose sight of this–a very _fun_ thing. and i like to think of the two of them, those two ancient comfortable souls, finally at peace with the love they have for the world and for each other. and when i do think of them, i’m reminded to love–just generally love–a little bit more.

***

i’ve been thinking about how the way aziraphale and crowley raise warlock is, well, not great. obviously, they’re trying their best, but at the heart of it, they’re just trying to mould him and shape him into what they want him to be; they’re not exactly encouraging him to discover himself. they want him to turn out a certain way because they think he’s a certain antichrist, and when he turns out not to be, they drop the whole thing like a sack of potatoes and literally never think of him again. and i was just wondering if the way aziraphale and crowley act as “parents” is at all similar to the way they themselves were “parented,” by heaven and hell respectively. aziraphale and crowley were basically recycling the rhetoric and fodder they’ve been fed and putting it all into warlock’s mind, because, i guess, that’s all they know. they wanted him to be half angel and half devil, but they didn’t know the value of the “all human.” they weren’t raising warlock to be a free-thinking being because they weren’t raised to be free-thinking beings themselves. the humans had to teach them that. which is why adam young is so, so interesting, and why his story makes so much sense.

***

i know metas have been written about this, about how aziraphale is motivated by obedience and crowley by fear, how crowley lets his fear go and aziraphale reaches for _him_ instead of for heaven, how they choose each other while facing down death and torture, how they choose each other without hesitation over heaven, over hell, over fear, and to me the most beautiful thing is…

that’s what frees them. after the not-pocalypse, aziraphale isn’t contacted by heaven nor crowley by hell. heaven wants nothing to do with aziraphale; hell wants nothing to do with crowley. they’ve been cut loose. they’re free, and they’re freed by their love for each other.


End file.
